Reply #93: T-ration Bread Pudding [View All]

[jmowreader]

T-rats (formally called "tray packs" and part of the Army Field Feeding System, which calls for T-rats for breakfast and dinner and MREs at lunch, one T-rat will feed twelve hungry soldiers) are a great idea. This dish was not.

To appreciate just how bad this "food" item smells, borrow a semi with about 30 tons of cargo in the trailer, go to the top of Old White Bird Hill Road in Idaho (top of hill 4200 feet, bottom of hill 1600 feet, road three miles long), drive to the bottom with one foot on the brakes and the other on the gas the whole way down, get out of the cab when you get to the town of White Bird, and take a nice deep whiff of the tractor's brakes.

Now imagine eating that.

This bread pudding is so foul, an interrogator once told me the Geneva Convention prohibits feeding it to detainees.

It will clear out a mess tent.

It will probably remove varnish from wood but since I can't stand to be within 30 feet of the shit, I can't tell you whether it would work. Looks like it would, though.

We had a field exercise at Fort Drum in which the company commander miscalculated his food requirements (he thought it was six soldiers on a T-rat, not 12) and had a big pile of food left over at the end of the exercise. He piled it all up next to the arms room and told everyone to take what they wanted. No one wanted the bread pudding.

If the Army were suddenly to get the idea that we'd be interoperating with a lot of Scottish units and decided to invent a haggis MRE (complete with a bottle of Scotch in the bag alongside the haggis) so we'd have something to feed them, American soldiers would gladly choose the haggis MRE over T-rat bread pudding.

We surveyed ten soldiers. Seven chose the new Liver and Onions MRE over T-rat bread pudding, two chose fasting and one picked seppuku. Fortunately, we got that guy stopped before he was able to harm himself. (Okay, we had to shoot him. But he didn't harm himself!)

Okay, all kidding aside, this item really sucks. Which is why they need to save it up in case the "Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is Act of 2007" (which drafts all the chickenhawks) comes to fruition over Bush's veto.